A marathon year with Neuroblastoma UK – fundraising charity tips and tales

As we crack on with a new year, I wanted to write a post about the wonderful charity I collaborated with in 2020 on my marathon fundraising efforts – Neuroblastoma UK. Without them I wouldn’t have been given the opportunity to run the 2020 London Marathon and as a result of that, I may never have carried on running and ended up writing this blog…!

The cause has always been close to my family’s heart, having sadly lost my eldest brother to neuroblastoma when he was aged just 14, which was a year before I was born. This meant that I never met him and have always wanted to do what I could to support the cause after knowing what my family went through. Neuroblastoma is a relatively rare form of childhood cancer and the charity do amazing work in both researching treatment into it and supporting families and children affected by the illness.

When the charity offered me the marathon place with them, I took it up immediately. The team at Neuroblastoma UK were so supportive over the coming months, checking in how I was doing with training, encouraging me through the winter weather and keeping me updated with information from the organisers when all the Covid-19 speculation meant plans were changing back and forth.  

They also sent me bits and pieces in the post which were lovely little touches and, without fail, always made me smile! Cards, notes and yummy goodies.

I raised over £1,000 for them last year personally through my JustGiving page, which was not as much as planned but with so many plans for fundraising and socialising scuppered I am hoping to be able to top that up going forward. After the 2020 London Marathon turned virtual, the charity offered me my place to run for them for 2021 instead– so I have everything crossed that it can go ahead in real life and I can experience the true London Marathon atmosphere. I’ll openly admit that’s the only reason I got into all of this…it’s iconic!

I’d also love to meet the charity fundraising team in person and have them cheering on along the route on the day. So, holding out that 2021 is a little brighter for us all than 2020 has been.

I would strongly encourage anybody to take up a charity place if there is a particular event or challenge you’d like to take on. There is usually a minimum fundraising amount, depending on the charity and the event in question and this tends to be a strong motivational factor to get training! It’s also really rewarding to know you have helped raise money towards their cause.

I caught up with my contacts at the charity, Katherine Mobey and Meghan Prindl, to hear how 2020 went for them:

‘When the Covid-19 pandemic happened, a lot of our planned activity came to a halt. Spring is usually a key time when supporters raise money for the charity, doing things like bake sales, raffles, dress down days, fetes etc with their friends, families and colleagues. But sadly, lockdown meant none of those activities were allowed. Similarly, all sporting events such as marathons, sponsored walks, runs and swims stopped too.

We anticipated that we would lose around a third of our income as a result of the impact of the pandemic. Neuroblastoma UK normally holds a biannual competition, when researchers are invited to apply for funding for their research project. These projects help to find new, kinder and more effective treatments for neuroblastoma. But concerns about our income meant that we had to postpone the grant round to 2022. At the same time, many researchers working on current projects had to stop their lab work too. Thankfully, much of this work has now restarted.

Although it is a very small charity, Neuroblastoma UK has the most committed and caring supporters, and we received some very generous donations from individuals, families and businesses who wanted to ensure we could continue our vital work. We launched an urgent appeal for donations, and much of our fundraising went virtual, helping us to plug the gap in income. We saw supporters taking on virtual marathons, we held a virtual Pub Quiz with our patron, Alan Carr, we even launched our own virtual Christmas fun run, Sleigh to 5k.

Thanks to the kindness of our supporters we have been able to minimise the impact of the pandemic. We look forward to more fundraising in 2021, enabling us to fund more important projects, so that can eventually find a cure for neuroblastoma.’

You can follow the charity’s work on Instagram on @neuroblastoma_UK – Alan Carr is a patron of the charity so often makes an appearance doing something fun too!

Tips for supporting charities this year

I thought I’d finish by suggesting some small things we could all do to help charities, who have been hit hard by the pandemic and are grateful for the help:

• Amazon Smile – did you know you can link your Amazon account to a charity of your choice and every time you make a purchase a proportion of the amount goes to the charity?
  
• Support your pals – if you know someone doing any fundraising for charity, just swing them some £ if you can afford it. I really appreciated every penny that people donated to my marathon fundraising and was very grateful whenever I got a notification from JustGiving! I know it sometimes seems like lots of people are asking for money, but if you take a step back and remember its not going to them personally, it’s going to a charity – it puts it into perspective a little.
  
• Utilise your employer – lots of companies have charity budgets and are keen to support causes that are important to their employees. I have always suggested Neuroblastoma UK when my company has asked us for nominations for corporate donations – previous years have seen them make a one-off donation and last year, I was delighted that they were chosen as one of beneficiaries for a virtual run organised by my company. As a result of that being an industry wide virtual fundraising event, Neuroblastoma UK received over £12,000. I was THRILLED (as were they!) and that figure was only possible due to it being a company and industry initiative.

Thanks for reading and I hope this post inspires even one or two of you to support your friends who are fundraising or even take on a challenge of your own 🙂

Let me know if you support any charities or have any ideas I can use when London Marathon fundraising begins again!

Love,

Ele

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